


Parting Glass

by Black_Crystal_Dragon



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Everybody Lives, Feels, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Handwaving, Injury, Intimacy, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Recovery, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Wakanda, infinity war fix-it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 08:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15166616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Crystal_Dragon/pseuds/Black_Crystal_Dragon
Summary: The Avengers have defeated Thanos and put the universe to rights. Steve and Bucky cope in the aftermath of the final battle.Set after a hypotheticalInfinity War Part II.





	Parting Glass

**Author's Note:**

> **The story so far:** The Avengers have defeated Thanos, taken back the Gauntlet, resurrected everybody, and are destroying the Infinity Stones.
> 
> Loki, Heimdall and the other Asgardians have also been saved in this version. _Infinity War_ ruined the end of _Thor: Ragnarok_ for me, and that needed fixing. To quote that one episode of _Doctor Who_ – Everybody lives!
> 
> Thank you to my wonderful and perfect beta, [Ice_Elf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ice_Elf/), who made this fic so much better in so many ways. <3
> 
> Happy 100th Birthday, Steve! (This is not in any way a birthday fic, but I'm posting in honour of the occasion.)

With a series of quaking, sonorous cracks, the Infinity Stones split into shards and a pulse of bright rainbow energy bloomed outwards, striking the assembled Avengers and knocking most of them off their feet. When the dust cleared, only Thor, Hulk, Tony and Doctor Strange were left standing. Behind them, smoke streamed upwards from the ravaged fields, shrouding the smashed remains of Thanos’s farmhouse and streaking across the purple sky.

“It is done! The Gauntlet is destroyed!” Thor bellowed, and a ragged cheer went up.

Steve lay where he had landed and watched as people started to pick themselves and each other up. Tony’s armour melted away as he limped straight for the spider kid – who had apparently been upgraded to a metal suit of his own – and pulled him not only off the ground but into a tight hug. Natasha and Clint staggered to their feet, leaning on each other, then went to help Wanda up. He could hear one of the aliens, the big shirtless guy, laughing gleefully somewhere behind him. Thor returned to Loki’s side and immediately pulled his brother into an embrace.

Then Bucky stepped into his line of sight and eclipsed everything else. He held out his hand, the one that wasn’t made of vibranium, and Steve grabbed hold. He groaned as Bucky helped him to his feet and pain returned in a rush. He pressed a hand to the gaping puncture wound just under his ribs, where Thanos had been just a little too quick, but he wasn’t strong enough to stop his knees from buckling.

Bucky caught him. Of course Bucky caught him. For a second he was back in Brooklyn in the 1930s – too small and too weak and hurt yet again, with his best friend coming to his rescue.

“Steve?” Bucky said urgently as he gasped and tried to pretend he couldn’t taste blood.

“I’m okay,” he said, finding his feet and straightening up. He leaned against Bucky maybe a little more than he normally would, relief crowding at his throat. Bucky was alive, he was safe, he was whole and here and looking at Steve like he had when they were both kids: the incredulous ‘You expect me to believe that, punk?’ expression that he hadn’t seen in far too long. He slid his free hand around Bucky’s back to grip his shoulder and ignored the fact that he was shaking. Everything hurt, but it didn’t matter – he was ridiculously, deliriously happy. They’d both made it.

He tore his eyes off Bucky to glance at the other reunions taking place around them and a laugh stabbed its way out of his chest. They’d _all_ made it, somehow. Everyone – even some people who maybe shouldn’t have, but he wasn’t going to call anybody out for saving the people they loved when they had the chance.

His gaze turned towards Loki. Thor was speaking to him with one hand planted solidly on his shoulder. Steve understood that: he was just as afraid to let go of Bucky. The grief was still an unsettled ache inside of him even if there was no need for it, because even if he’d got him back, he’d still watched Bucky fade into ash right in front of his eyes and he couldn’t forget it.

Before he could dwell too much, Thor looked up and caught his eye, lifting his axe in salute. Steve nodded in return, then raised his voice. “Time to go home.”

Thor seemed to agree. He grinned and raised Stormbreaker high above his head. A brilliant multi-coloured light streamed down from above to sweep over everyone in turn. Steve closed his eyes against the onslaught of bizarre, flashing colours and the roar of the universe flowing past and focused on what he knew: the body pressed against his side, the arm around his waist; the solidity of Bucky next to him, exactly where Steve needed him to be.

It seemed to take a long time before his feet hit solid ground, and when they finally did he gasped as the landing jarred his injuries. He opened his eyes to find himself in Wakanda on the palace’s landing platform, which was now scorched with the distinctive pattern of the Bifrost. Around them were the rest of the Avengers, the Guardians, the Asgardians. There were guards running towards them, but T’Challa was holding up his hands and shouting orders, soothing the situation.

Steve blinked. He could barely hear T’Challa over the ringing in his ears. There was just the pain radiating out from that place under his ribs, and the warmth of Bucky’s body. He blinked again and had to force his eyes back open. His chest felt constricted like it hadn’t since the serum. The scrawny kid he’d never stopped being on the inside couldn’t hold up the weight of all his enhanced muscles and super-soldier bones any longer.

“Buck,” he whispered, wanting to warn him about what was happening, what was about to happen.

“Steve?” Bucky said, frowning, as he swayed.

His knees gave way, but this time he couldn’t stop himself from falling. Even Bucky hanging on to him wasn’t enough to keep his dead weight upright. He crashed to the floor, dragging Bucky after him – or maybe Bucky went down willingly, because he was clutching at Steve’s uniform as he slumped backwards.

“Steve! Somebody –”

Suddenly there were a lot of voices. Tony’s voice cut stridently through the clamour and he could hear Thor yelling, both demanding different things. But over it all he could hear Bucky – screaming for Shuri, screaming for somebody to get help. The agony in his voice hurt more than Steve’s injuries. He reached out, hand landing on Bucky’s arm, the vibranium arm, and he broke off instantly.

“Steve,” he growled, hunching over him and blocking everything else out of his narrowing field of vision. “Steve, please. Don’t do this.”

He wanted to tell him it was going to be okay – the world didn’t need him any more, it hadn’t for a long time, and neither did Bucky. He was going to be just fine without him. He wanted to tell Bucky he was glad he was here. He couldn’t even get the air in his lungs to breathe, let alone speak. Instead, he put his hand around the back of Bucky’s neck, pulling him down until their foreheads were pressed together and he could feel Bucky’s ragged, desperate breathing against his mouth.

“No,” Bucky said. Steve could feel his grip on his shoulders, but it was fading. Everything was fading, even Bucky’s voice as he called his name.

~

Steve opened his eyes and blinked at his surroundings. He was lying in a bed in a room he didn’t recognise, surrounded by Wakandan architecture and décor. His filthy uniform had been replaced by a loose grey t-shirt and what felt like pyjama pants. He took a breath – and was surprised when there was no pain. He put a hand to the place where Thanos had torn a hole in him but that didn’t hurt either.

“Guess I owe Shuri double now,” said a very familiar voice.

“I guess we both do,” Steve replied as Bucky walked over to his bedside and sat down on the edge of the mattress. For a long moment, he couldn’t do anything except stare up at his friend and soak in the relief that he was there. “Everybody else okay? Tony?”

“Everybody’s fine,” Bucky said. “Except for you.”

“Seems like I’m fixed up,” Steve said mildly. He wiggled his toes, just in case, but the sheets moved in the right places, so he assumed he was still in one piece and fully functional. Now that he was a little more awake, he was aware of the bone-weary tiredness inside his muscles: probably the aftermath of the battle and the exertion of his body’s healing process. Beyond that he felt back to his usual self.

“But you almost weren’t,” Bucky said in a small voice.

There was a haunted look in his eyes that reminded Steve of the Winter Soldier. He sat up, being careful just in case, but he didn’t feel anything worse than the dull ache of over-used muscles. Bucky watched him, hands ghosting around Steve’s movements like he wanted to help but wasn’t sure how, or if he was allowed.

“Hey,” Steve said, catching the wrist that was flesh and bone and putting it over his heart, holding it there. “I’m all right, Buck.”

“You almost weren’t,” he insisted. His gaze skittered away from Steve’s face to fix on the place where the wound had been.

“You want to make sure?” Steve said quietly. It wouldn’t be the first time that Bucky checked him over. Before the serum, when Steve would get into fights and end up bruised and bloody and too full of stubborn pride to take proper care of himself, Bucky would roll his eyes and make sure he wasn’t seriously hurt: no broken bones, no concussion. Even after it, when they were fighting in Europe, he’d been in the habit of finding the holes torn in Steve’s uniform and confirming that bullets, blades and bolts of deadly energy had only grazed him.

He understood the impulse better now – the need to see or feel that everything was healed or unhurt.

He’d felt it for himself when Bucky was recovering in the immediate aftermath of Siberia. Before he went into the cryogenic sleep, all he’d wanted was to run his hands over all the places where Bucky had been injured and reassure himself that there was no more pain, nothing left to worry about – physically at least. He hadn’t, because Bucky was both himself and not himself and he hadn’t wanted to push. It had lessened in the long months that Bucky had spent frozen and in the time since Shuri had woken him, but it was still there, buried.

When the Gauntlet finally set the universe back to rights, it had become sharp and fierce again – the need to know that Bucky was alive and solid, that he wasn’t going to turn to dust – but there hadn’t been time for sentimentality.

Bucky glanced up at him and searched his face, hopeful at the same time as wary, and then reached out. He hesitated before he even got close to touching, his eyes flicking to the black and gold of his arm, his expression closing off.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, but Bucky didn’t move. He just kept looking down at his new arm with his face a horrifying blank.

Slowly, Steve took hold of his left wrist. Bucky jerked and tried to pull away, but Steve just held on tighter and murmured his name. He stopped struggling and just stared, eyes wide with sadness and uncertainty as Steve slid the palm of his hand onto the place just beneath the lowest of his ribs and held it there. Bucky sucked in a deep breath, the full focus of his attention shifting abruptly to the spot where the wound had been and fixing there.

“See,” Steve told him. “Doesn’t even hurt.”

Bucky swallowed. His fingers twitched. Steve tugged the material of his t-shirt out from between Bucky’s hand and his skin and was shocked by the touch of his vibranium fingertips. He’d expected it to feel sort of like Vision in his most synthetic form, smooth with a hum of energy, or perhaps like the hard, cold metal plates of Bucky’s previous arm, but it wasn’t quite the same as either. There was a ghost of warmth and a subtle grain to the surface of the vibranium. He grabbed Bucky’s wrist again, anticipating that he would pull back, but he did the opposite and pushed his hand flat against Steve’s healed skin.

He wasn’t sure exactly what the Wakandan prosthetic could do and he didn’t like to assume – though the fact that Bucky had reached for him with it suggested that it gave him some degree of touch-sense. Bucky was smoothing his hand over the place where Steve had been injured, letting the whole of his hand pass over it in stages, one way and then the other, like he _could_ feel and was being thorough about checking him over.

“I’m good, Buck,” Steve told him, and finally Bucky’s gaze returned to his face. He deliberately kept his hand on Bucky’s left arm, sliding up from his wrist and rubbing a thumb across the bare vibranium just above the bend in his elbow.

“Steve,” Bucky said thickly.

His mouth worked silently as he searched for words, but then he gave up and tugged Steve forwards into a fierce hug. He clung on, hands fisting in the material of Steve’s t-shirt and chin digging into his shoulder. Steve closed his eyes and slid his fingers into Bucky’s hair, holding him just as tightly. Pressed this close together he could feel Bucky’s chest expand and contract, the reminder that he was alive gusting over his skin. It was almost overwhelming.

When he’d watched Bucky disintegrate into ash, the only thought in his head had been, _Not you_. Selfishly, _Anybody but you_.

He’d never in his life doubted that he loved Bucky, but it was only then, with the worst timing in the world, that Steve had realised that friendship didn’t cover what he was feeling.

Sam had asked him once if he was trying to find Bucky because there was more history between them than the books talked about, and he’d felt the flush hit the back of his neck and muttered that it wasn’t like that. Then Sam had asked him if he’d ever wanted it to be. He hadn’t been lying when he told him that he hadn’t even thought about it. There wasn’t anything to think about. Before he went in the ice, he hadn’t known he _could_ love Bucky any way other than as a friend. It wasn’t that he didn’t know men could love other men – he was from Brooklyn, and he had eyes and ears – it just hadn’t occurred to him that the way he felt about Bucky was anything more than friendly.

Looking back, he’d been a prize idiot. When Bucky had fallen from the train in 1945, it wasn’t like losing a friend. It was like Steve himself had died, but his body just kept going as if there wasn’t a gaping empty hole where the living heart of him had been torn out.

Seeing him disappear had felt the same.

“Steve?” Bucky said against his shoulder.

Steve registered two things at once: that he was crying, and that Bucky was trying to pull away from him. He let go, mortified on both counts, and scrubbed his hands over his face while muttering apologies.

“Hey, Steve – Steve, no,” Bucky said, catching his wrists and pulling them down.

Steve looked away before he had to see Bucky’s expression and tried to get a hold of himself, blinking at the burning in the corners of his eyes. Bucky was still saying his name, his hands skimming up Steve’s arms and gripping just above his elbow, at his shoulder, curling against his neck.

The careful touch of Bucky’s fingers against his cheek made him jump and turn towards him in surprise. Bucky looked as upset as Steve felt – though at least he wasn’t crying. As if eye contact was a signal he’d been waiting for, Bucky rested his palm gently against the line of Steve’s jaw and swept his thumb over his cheek, brushing over the delicate skin beneath his eye. His hands bracketed either side of Steve’s face.

“It’s okay,” he said, like he’d done a hundred times long ago, when Steve was sick, or his asthma wouldn’t let him breathe, as if saying it with enough conviction would make it true. “You’re okay.”

He tilted Steve’s head forwards and pressed his lips to his brow. Steve’s heart skipped over like it hadn’t since the ’40s.

He choked out Bucky’s name, because this was all wrong, it should be the other way round. After everything Bucky had been through, he ought to be the one offering comfort. Finally, after what seemed like a long time, the kiss to his forehead ended and Bucky exhaled in a rush against Steve’s face. As Steve lifted his head, his nose bumped into Bucky’s cheek. He didn’t pull back, just looked at Steve up-close and let his thumb creep over the corner of his mouth. Steve reached for him and felt a shiver run through Bucky’s body when his hands came to rest on his waist.

Steve’s heart seemed like it was going to swell right out of his ribcage. Because the way Bucky was touching him – the way he reacted when Steve touched him – wasn’t friendly, not at all. The hope seemed too fragile to be real, but Steve was done wasting time. Doubt and shyness had missed him too many chances already, and he wasn’t going to let this one slip through his fingers.

After all, this was _Bucky_. Even if he was wrong, how bad could it be? They could weather a little awkwardness. They’d come through worse.

So he sighed and turned his head into Bucky’s touch. It was Bucky’s left hand, the vibranium hand, but he didn’t care. He pressed a slow, deliberate kiss against the pad of Bucky’s thumb, watching his eyes as they widened, but with surprise, not disgust or revulsion. Listening as he stopped breathing, just for a second.

“Steve,” Bucky said, and then he kissed him.

It was short and simple, but regardless it set off a firecracker in Steve’s chest. Bucky twitched back – too soon, far too soon – and stared at him, gaze darting over every part of his face.

“This is,” he said, brows pulling in. “That’s what you wanted?”

Steve took a breath. His first impulse was to just say _yes_ , but he understood enough about the person Bucky was now – and the person Bucky was trying very hard to be – that he couldn’t do that to him. Instead, he drew back far enough that he could properly focus on Bucky’s eyes and murmured, “Only if it’s what you want, too, Buck. Not if you’re only playing along to make me happy.”

The tension in Bucky’s shoulders started to melt. He sighed a laugh and nuzzled into Steve’s face as he wrapped his arms around him again. “God,” he breathed, his lips moving against Steve’s. “If it’s what _I_ want.”

“Bucky?” Steve said, trying to lean back and get a good look at him, but Bucky refused to be more than an inch away from him. All he could really see were his eyes, bright and alive, crinkled at the corners with the kind of joy he hadn’t seen there since the war broke out, a whole lifetime ago however he looked at it.

“I want,” Bucky said, kissing him. “You don’t know? It’s what I want, and you’re saying I can –”

He broke off, like he couldn’t believe what he was saying, suddenly giddy.

Steve lips were starting to catch Bucky’s smile. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t know,” Bucky said into his mouth.

“Neither did I,” Steve murmured, and he wasn’t sure whether he meant about himself or about Bucky.

He wanted to ask about a hundred different questions – but then they were kissing again, slow and lingering, neither of them willing to pull away even to draw breath. Steve sighed and pulled him closer until they were chest to chest. He could ask later. There was going to _be_ a later.

Between the lazy, contented kisses he was laying on Steve, Bucky said, “Did nobody teach you how to do this right? Stop smiling so much. I keep getting your teeth.”

Steve couldn’t stop, even if he wanted to – and it seemed like Bucky was having the same problem, his lips curved almost too much for the kisses they were trading back and forth.

“Teeth, huh?” he murmured and caught Bucky’s lower lip.

The effect was immediate: Bucky shuddered, his hands turning to fists in Steve’s clothing, chest heaving with a gasp. Steve released him and pulled back, stammering an apology, but Bucky was there, his mouth a shock of wet heat, swallowing the idea that he hadn’t liked it, searing  _yes_  and  _more_  and  _again_  into Steve with the press of his tongue. A sound caught in Steve’s throat as he put his hands in Bucky’s hair, holding him steady. The space between them crackled suddenly with potential.

Finally, Bucky eased away from him and they parted with a slick, faintly obscene sound. Steve opened his eyes to find that Bucky’s were still closed, and there was a flush of colour riding high on his cheekbones and spreading down the sides of his neck. He said, a little breathlessly, “So that’s what it takes to make you blush.”

He was startled by the pitch of his own voice – how far gone he sounded, just from a little kissing. Bucky smirked and cracked open his lids to look at him through his lashes. He sounded very pleased as he murmured, “Look who’s talking.”

Steve chuckled, self-conscious: now that he mentioned it, he could feel the warmth of his own skin, everywhere.

“Looks good on you,” Bucky added, his expression turning soft, and Steve’s heart performed a somersault. If he was going to talk like that, Steve couldn’t be expected not to kiss him, could he?

Bucky hummed against his lips, the fire of a moment ago banked but still present – in Steve, at least, but he thought in both of them. He hoped. Even if he was wrong, Bucky’s arms were still tight around him like he didn’t want to let Steve go, ever, and that was good enough.

The unmistakable sound of a camera shutter made both of them jump and break apart. Standing in the doorway to Steve’s room was Shuri, angling the lens of a Wakandan smartphone in their direction and smiling like she’d just won the lottery.

“That’s going on Twitter,” she said as she came into the room.

Steve really didn’t want to tear himself away from Bucky, but he did, leaning back and pointing a warning finger. “No, it’s not.”

“What’s twitter?” Bucky asked. He shifted back a little, and Steve realised that he’d climbed half onto the bed in an effort to get closer.

“Social media,” Shuri explained. She did something with the device in her hands, and a hologram displaying the official @Wakanda Twitter account appeared in the air above it, oriented so that Bucky could read the text. “You remember? I told you about it.”

“Huh,” Bucky said. “So everybody in the world would see it?”

“Well, I think something like this,” Shuri made the same gesture with her hand, and the photo she’d captured appeared as a second hologram, “Would  _definitely_  end up trending, so yes. Can I tag Wakanda?”

“No!” Steve said, flushing as he stared at the image of himself and Bucky kissing, totally wrapped up in each other.

Tony’s voice interrupted their argument. “What’s all the noise in here, disturbing my recovery? Did Cap finally wake up? Hey, Princess. Oh –”

Steve braced himself to deal with Tony’s reaction to Bucky, but although he paused at the sight of him, after a moment he gave a wary nod of greeting, which Bucky returned.

“Mr Stark,” Shuri said serenely, as if she was unaware of how big a deal it was that Tony was not only willing to be in the same room as Bucky, but was almost being polite to him. Steve didn’t think she was oblivious to the undertones of the situation, though. After all, she’d walked Bucky through his recovery. She was just good at diplomacy.

Then Tony spotted the photo and said, “Huh.”

Steve felt Bucky tense up. He couldn’t help feeling a little apprehensive himself, even if he knew they had the law on their side in the present day – but he got the sense that Tony was just surprised. He no doubt disapproved of Bucky specifically, but Steve didn’t think Tony would have a problem with the fact that they were both men.

In the uncomfortable quiet that followed, Bucky eased himself away from Steve and got up, moving towards the window. Steve could have put it down to discomfort at Tony’s reaction or, given the way he started scanning the view, a need to check the security of the room, but he knew better. Bucky was deliberately giving them some space, offering Tony the opportunity to come closer if that was what he wanted.

After a few seconds, Tony visibly shook himself, screwing his eyes closed. When he opened them again, he noticed that Bucky had retreated but said nothing about it. He just padded towards the bed. “So how you feeling? They patch you up?”

“Yeah,” Steve replied. “What about you?”

If Tony wasn’t going to talk about the photo, neither was he. Shuri minimised both holograms with a flick of her fingers, obviously amused.

Tony made a dismissive noise and smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, not entirely happy but close enough. “Good as new. Wakandan tech puts the Regeneration Cradle at the Avengers’ Facility to shame.” He patted his side where Steve knew he’d been injured as if to prove the point that he was healed, a wry expression crossing his face. Then he gave Steve a more genuine smile and shrugged as he pushed his hands into his pockets. “Plus I’m feeling more relaxed than I have in about six years.”

“I’m glad,” Steve said. He knew how heavily the threat of alien invasion had weighed on Tony’s mind ever since the battle for New York. What he’d seen on the other side of the portal had been a shadow on all his actions since then. Maybe now he could move forward.

“Rest of the world, not so much,” Tony sighed. “People want answers, and we’re the ones who have ’em.”

“My brother is holding a press conference later,” Shuri said. While Steve and Tony had been talking, she’d quietly come to the head of the bed, but it was only when she spoke that Steve realised she was checking a digital medical chart, smoothly integrated into the side of the headboard. It took him another moment to realise that the data was live, the EKG jumping in time with his pulse despite the fact that he couldn’t feel any monitoring equipment. However, this was Wakanda: nothing about the technology here surprised him much any more.

It did explain why Shuri had chosen that particular moment to interrupt, though – she’d probably got some kind of alert when his heart rate picked up. He felt simultaneously embarrassed that kissing Bucky apparently had enough of an effect to set off a medical alarm, and grateful that she was the one who’d walked in on them rather than some doctor he didn’t know.

“You woke up just in time. Think you’ll be up for it?” Tony asked, dragging his attention back to the conversation. “You can say no. Wanda’s not going. And we figured the world is probably _not_ ready to meet the talking raccoon.”

“Probably not,” Steve agreed, though he couldn’t help smiling and adding dryly, “Or the sentient tree.”

“Exactly,” Tony said, extracting a hand from his pocket to point at Steve. “So, no pressure. Totally up to you.”

The prospect of facing journalists was always marginally less appetising than jumping into a shark tank. He never knew which of their questions had teeth – or which of his answers was going to come back and bite him in the ass. Something must have shown on his face, because Tony gave him a calculating look and folded his arms.

“Steve. You don’t have to come,” he said. He looked at Shuri and asked, “Is he even allowed out of bed yet?”

She tapped the screen of the medical display, turning it dark and, Steve hoped, deactivating the monitoring equipment.

“Yes. He’s allowed,” she said. She smiled at him. “Physically, you’re fine.”

The way she said it made Steve pause, and listen to the words she wasn’t saying. His body may have healed – but mentally, emotionally, he still felt exhausted.

“I think,” he said slowly, “I’ll give it a pass. If you can manage without me.”

In the corner of his eye, Bucky turned his head to stare at him. Tony also gave him a long look, the sad smile returning to his face. “Are you kidding?” he said, and even the teasing note in his voice was gentle with understanding. “The day I need your backup to talk to the press, we have a problem.”

Steve found himself smiling, even though he felt like he was letting the Avengers – letting Tony – down.

“We’ll be fine, Cap,” Tony said, leaning over and patting his shin. “Rest up, feel better, let us handle the clean-up.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve murmured.

“I’ll let everybody know you’re up and about,” Tony said with a smile as he headed towards the door. “You might get visitors!”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Steve called after him as he disappeared with a final wave, and found that he meant it. It would be good to see the rest of the Avengers and confirm that they had all come through with no permanent damage.

Shuri followed Tony to the door but stopped on the threshold. “I’d better get going too – but as always, Steve, our home is yours for as long as you stay here. You know where most things are by now.” She smirked. “If you’re planning on getting out of bed, that is.”

She left while Steve’s blush was developing and before he could recover enough to reply to her insinuation.

“Still looks good on you,” Bucky said quietly when the door closed behind her.

Steve breathed a laugh, shaking his head. “Stop it.”

A shadow of Bucky’s old smirk passed over his lips, tempered by time and trauma and, Steve realised, shyness. Then he left his post by the window and came over to the bedside, but this time he didn’t sit down. His expression became more serious again as he tucked his hands into his pockets.

“Why didn’t you go with Stark?” he asked.

“To the press conference?” Steve said.

Bucky nodded, his gaze lowered and a line of confusion between his brows. Steve wished that wasn’t so familiar, and that he didn’t know what it meant: that Bucky was struggling to remember, or to reconcile something in his memory with the reality of the present day.

“I only just woke up,” Steve said, trying to keep his voice light, and trying to figure out a way of telling Bucky enough of the truth without worrying him any more. He shrugged. “How long was I out for, anyway?”

“Two days,” Bucky said after a pause that lasted long enough for Steve to read his reluctance.

That was a surprise. He knew how good Wakanda’s medical tech was, and the serum’s effect on his body’s healing rate. The fact that he’d been unconscious for so long meant that it must have been bad. Maybe he hadn’t been so wrong to assume he was dying when he collapsed. He took a shaky breath and tried not to think about the way Bucky had looked earlier, tried not to imagine the blank grief frozen permanently onto his face – and failed.

Bucky raised his head and met Steve’s gaze. “But you don’t stop. You never stop. Even when you should.”

There was something accusatory lurking in Bucky’s tone, and it was even sharper in his eyes – and Steve thought of the many times Bucky had told him to take it easy until he was feeling better, and he’d forced himself out of bed or back onto his feet regardless.

“Maybe I decided to finally listen to your nagging,” Steve replied, trying to make it a joke, but Bucky shook his head.

“No,” he said, still serious. “That’s not it.”

Steve sighed and looked down at his hands in his lap. He should have known better than to try and get something past Bucky. Even now, with patches missing from his memory and his personality altered by everything that had happened to him, he knew Steve better than anybody – almost like it was instinct, something too deeply ingrained for HYDRA to root out.

“I guess I’m not ready,” he said quietly. It sounded like an excuse. “I know – I should be, Shuri said –”

“I heard her,” Bucky interrupted. He sat down very close to Steve and reeled him in with a hand against the back of his neck until Steve’s forehead was resting against his shoulder. “I know.”

Steve closed his eyes. It was a relief, that Bucky understood what Shuri had implied when she said he was physically fine, and he didn’t have to explain or justify himself any further.

“She said that to me,” Bucky added after a few seconds, and the inside of Steve’s chest shuddered with discomfort. He didn’t have the strength to pull away, not when Bucky’s fingers were stroking gently through his hair – but he was wrong, and he couldn’t let that stand.

“It’s not the same, Buck,” he said.

“Sure it ain’t,” Bucky replied easily. “Doesn’t mean it’s not just as bad.”

Steve shook his head without lifting it from Bucky’s shoulder – because how could he compare himself to Bucky, his experiences to what Bucky had suffered? He wouldn’t dare. Except Bucky’s fingers threaded into his hair and tightened, stopping him from moving.

“Don’t,” he murmured. “I get it, but don’t.”

“Bucky,” Steve protested. Then he sighed. “I shouldn’t just sit here and leave my friends to deal with –”

“You know, I thought that,” Bucky interrupted. “You remember when you came to see me, right after I came out of cryo and Shuri pulled out everything HYDRA put in me?”

Steve hummed an affirmative. He wasn’t likely to forget. He’d got the call that Bucky was awake and dropped everything, abandoning Natasha and Sam in the middle of a mission to head back to Wakanda. It hadn’t been an easy reunion, but it had been a relief to have Bucky back – and know he wasn’t in danger of losing himself again if some asshole got hold of the right sequence of words and decided to take advantage.

“Well,” Bucky continued. “When you left, I thought – I should be with you, I should’ve gone with you.”

He knew that well enough. After his reluctant return to the field, they’d stayed in contact – and if Steve hadn’t already concluded that the twenty-first century was superior to the ‘good old days’ of the war, the fact that he could talk to Bucky from half way across the world, with video, would have convinced him. However, in the months of Bucky’s recovery, their conversations had been overcast by his disappointment in himself, his misplaced belief that he was somehow letting Steve down. He’d been convinced that HYDRA was his problem, and he ought to at least be helping to root them out.

“What’d you tell me?” Bucky murmured.

Steve closed his eyes. “That you needed time.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “So listen to your own advice for once, punk.”

His voice hardened with the edge of a command. It made Steve want to argue back, call him a jerk like old times and fight his corner, but he couldn’t resist any more. Defeated, he turned his face into the side of Bucky’s neck and slowly lifted his hands onto his waist. Bucky’s left arm curled around his back, rubbing up and down the length of his spine in long sweeps until Steve finally exhaled all the way and relaxed, leaning into him and trusting him to take some of his weight.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the most self-indulgent thing I’ve ever written. And there'll probably be more.


End file.
